Ten Years of Quiet Choosing: Stefanie & Ashley’s Civil Ceremony at the Esplanade

Some weddings announce themselves with fireworks. Others arrive quietly, like morning light slipping across a familiar room.

Stefanie and Ashley’s civil ceremony at the Esplanade was the second kind.

There was no grand entrance, no ballroom reveal. Just a morning in the heart of Singapore, with the two of them, a handful of witnesses, and the small circle of people they trusted to hold the memories. It felt less like a performance and more like a continuation — the natural next step in ten years of choosing each other in steady, unshowy ways.

Inside the Esplanade, the official part of the day moved quickly. Civil ceremonies are designed to be efficient: a short reading, a few formal lines, the signing of documents that turn “we’ve been together for a decade” into “we’re married.” There was a gentleness to the way they moved through it all. A squeeze of a hand. A half-smile shared across the table. The kind of small, familiar gestures you only learn after years of life side by side.

When you’ve known someone for ten years, the vows don’t start at “I do.” They start in library corners, late-night calls, and years of shared Google calendars. In their case, they also start in seasons of distance — months where Ashley was in the UK for his master’s, and “goodnight” had to travel through screens and across time zones before it landed.

The Esplanade, with its clean lines and distinctive curves, became our stage for portraits after the paperwork was done. We wandered through its corridors and open spaces, letting them simply be themselves. Instead of stiff poses, we leaned into movement: the way they fell into step together, the tilt of Stefanie’s head as she looked up at Ashley, the way he softened whenever she laughed.

From certain angles, the Singapore skyline framed them — glass and steel in the distance, their quiet focus on one another in the foreground. That juxtaposition felt like them: grounded, thoughtful, private, in the middle of a city that is always in motion.

Because civil ceremonies have to keep the official vows short, we had an unexpected gift: room for a second ceremony, just for them.

We made our way up to the rooftop, where the river below moved at its own unhurried pace and Marina Bay Sands stood in the background like a witness. The city hummed around us, but up there it was just Stefanie and Ashley again, ten years of history gathered into a few pages of personal vows.

These were the words that don’t fit into a standard script. The parts you can’t quite say in a room full of strangers, but can say on a rooftop with the wind tugging gently at your clothes and the person you love directly in front of you.

They read to each other quietly, voices soft but sure. Every now and then, one of them would look up, eyes bright, as if to make sure the other had really heard the line that mattered. There were smiles that landed slowly. A few deep breaths. That look couples have when they realise, simultaneously, “We’re really doing this. We’ve arrived here, together.”

As a photographer, my favourite moments are rarely the ones where everyone is looking straight into the camera. They’re the in-between beats: the shoulder bump after the vows. The way hands find each other without looking. The small exhale once the official parts are over and you’re just two people again, relieved and happy, standing on a rooftop with the rest of the day still ahead of you.

With Stefanie and Ashley, that’s where we stayed. We kept the focus on gestures and glances, on the way ten years of companionship sits in the body — more relaxed, more at ease, more deeply known. Nothing felt rushed. We had time to let them breathe into the moment, to let the city fall slightly out of focus so they could come into sharp relief.

On a personal level, this wedding was a quiet milestone for me too.

I’ve known Stef for more than a decade. Photographing her civil ceremony wasn’t just another booking on the calendar; it was one of those quiet privileges in a career, where your work and your relationships intersect in a way that feels deeply human. To be trusted with her and Ashley’s story, on a day that seals ten years of history and opens whatever comes next, is something I don’t take lightly.

When I look back at their images, what I see most clearly is not the architecture (though the Esplanade and the skyline gave us a beautiful frame) or the location (though the rooftop view over the river is unmistakably Singapore). What I see is a relationship that has weathered distance, grown in private, and chosen to keep showing up — not loudly, but steadily.

Ten years of quiet choosing, gathered into one morning by the river.

If you’re planning an intimate civil ceremony in Singapore, and you want your photos to feel honest and unforced — more about the way you hold each other than the size of the crowd — this is the kind of day I love to document. You can find more of my work and reach out to plan your own wedding or civil ceremony.